


Avengers Mk II

by rio95000



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: BlackHawk Kids, F/M, Family
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-09-15
Updated: 2014-12-29
Packaged: 2017-12-26 15:35:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 9,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/967643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rio95000/pseuds/rio95000
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-movie. The Avengers have settled into life as a team, but there are more complicated things to deal with than some random aliens. Meanwhile, two Russian agents are making their way to Stark Tower to find their 'rogue' parents.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

"You are both almost ready," the pacing trainer purred. "Not too much longer, and you will finally reach your purpose."  
Agents 1392 and 1393 didn't move. They had been doing this for far too long to let anything, even a mention of their life-long goal, to distract them. Their eyes didn't even follow the trainer as he crossed the room in front of them.  
"Calling the shots," the trainer said, motioning towards the visible targets scattered across the rear of the room. More would appear as the exercise went on. There were two different figures represented, and both Agents trained with them regularly.  
Both agents nodded.  
"10m, 0100," said Agent 1392. His silenced handgun barely shook as the target crumpled.  
"12m, 1130," matched Agent 1393 with her first knife.  
"15m, 0400."  
A figure swung out from the floor, but Agent 1393 didn't miss a beat. "25m, 1000."  
The two fell into a rapid cadence, demolishing everything that appeared.  
Part way through the exercise, they both heard the tread of someone entering the room from behind them.  
"As always Agents: tell me, why are you here?" he growled.  
Agent 1392 answered as he took his shot. "Our parents were agents before us, sir."  
"They were a credit to their trainers and the organisation," Agent 1393 continued. Both of them were speaking out of habit – focusing as little on the words as they were the two men in the room with them. Targets were still falling in front of them.  
"But they defected to the enemy," scowled 1392.  
"Let us behind in an exploded shell of a building," snapped 1393.  
"And sold all our secrets to terrorists who used it to hurt innocent civilians."  
"So what are you going to do?" the man asked softly.  
"We will find them."  
"Both of them."  
"And finally avenge everything they have done to us,"  
"And everyone else they have betrayed," said 1392, as he took out the last of the targets and lowered his gun.  
"Hopefully, exactly like you do their target replicas," the trainer said, walking back to the end of the room. "All hits… wait, except this one that didn't come out properly."  
Everyone saw a single target still lying on the floor, waiting to be pushed up.  
"That will be dealt with," said the other man. "What about the rest?"  
"All head shots," said the trainer.  
The man behind 1392 and 1393 sounded pleased. "Soon you will be able to go after them. You are almost ready."  
"When sir?" risked 1393. "We have waited our entire lives to make up for our parents' treason."  
"Soon," he said simply, and left the room.  
"I wish they weren't our parents, Luka" 1393 said, once the door had been shut behind the trainer.  
1392 shrugged. "Think of them only as biological influences then, Aleks. That's what I do."  
Aleksandra wandered over to the target that was still lying down. In the next room, they both heard the sound of the technician being punished for his incompetence.  
Luka put his hand on his sisters' shoulder. "Not much longer, Aleks. And then they won't be anything anymore."  
Aleks' eyes never left the target, but she nodded. "Traitor," she spat, and kicked out at the fallen target.  
It wasn't her problem.  
This cut-out of Clint Barton could wait until their next session.


	2. Chapter 2

Aleksandra could never be sure if the glares she and her brother received as they walked down the hall from the other operatives were due to their status at the top of the rankings or because of the identity of their parents. Black Widow and Hawkeye were well known to all the residents of the training compound, and all the operatives they had come into contact with so far on different missions. When they were younger Luka and Aleksandra had to prove themselves to some of the older trainees, to show that they weren’t like the two former agents.  
This was made even harder as they grew – physically the resemblance was clear. Luka had his father’s hair and eyes, but his slimmer face and frame resembled his mother; Aleksandra’s face and build was closer to their father, except for her hair which was red-ish and slightly curly like their mother.   
“You’re brooding on them again, Leksi,” Luka grinned down at her.  
Aleks rolled her eyes at her childhood nickname. He knew she preferred Aleks. “Can’t help it, Luka.”  
He shrugged. “I suppose it’s not a bad thing – they’re getting closer.”   
The two of them entered their room and started cleaning and shelving their equipment. Luka favoured his handguns, but was more than adequate with knives in close quarters; whereas Aleks used her knives for throwing and preferred a long distance rifle with a scope. She remembered the trainers trying her on a bow and arrow, bizarrely, at one point years ago, but she was never at a high enough standard to use it now.   
“So with all your brooding,” Luka started again. “Have you come up with a new plan?”  
He had always insisted that Aleks was better at strategising than he was; it was like she could anticipate all the outcomes of a situation and provide a solution. Aleks wasn’t about to disagree with him, but thought that Luka seemed to react instinctively in the heat of the moment. That was their usual arrangement: Aleks would find a place to observe from a distance, and Luka would take the close in position.   
“Still haven’t got a better one than our twelfth birthday’,” she grinned. For years it had been a personal challenge to come up with a new way to take out their parents, each more involved than the last. For their twelfth birthday, they had devised a ploy that used an inflatable raft, vodka and a clown mask – needless to say it bordered on insanity but it was something to laugh about amidst the training and isolation that they found themselves in.  
Luka chuckled, but it didn’t last long. “Still think the trickiest part is going to be finding them.”  
The trainers had refused to give them any information on their parent’s whereabouts, explaining that they didn’t want the temptation to go after them to be there until Luka and Aleks were ready.  
Now it was Aleks’ turn to shrug. “If they’re professional spies it shouldn’t be easy. I imagine we’ll have to work pretty hard to find anyone who knows them.”


	3. Chapter 3

“Another solid effort, Avengers,” Captain America said as he led his team through the Helicarrier towards the bridge.  
“I’m not sure that’s what Fury will say,” quipped Hawkeye. “What was that thing about the hamster, Stark?” He grinned at Iron Man, and could feel the Black Widow smiling inside with him.  
“Just because you were cloistered in some cave in the Andes and missed the whole _Hamster Dance_ phase, Feathers, doesn’t mean the rest of us did,” the man in the iron suit answered.  
“We can only wish you missed _Gangnam Style_ in a similar fashion,” the archer shot back.  
“Let’s pretend we haven’t just spent 3 hours stuck together in an airborne tin can and then we can continue this exceedingly witty repartee,” groaned Dr Banner.  
“I must confess I am confused,” said Thor.  
The Widow rolled her eyes. “Tony and Clint were trying to see how many pop culture references they could cram into a single conversation, and that was Bruce’s way of telling them to shut up,” she said.  
“You haven’t heard the start of my references,” Tony said.  
“Always the last word,” Clint put in, and everyone groaned.  
“We had the ‘last word’ contest on the plane ride out,” said Steve firmly. “I win this one, because we’re here.”  
“Well, that’s what you...” Tony started, but the rest of the team practically jumped him to stop him from finishing.

And this scene was what Agent Hill encountered when she opened the door to tell the Avengers Director Fury was ready to debrief them. They had insisted on still calling it that, even after Thor had gotten confused and the rest of the team had found a way to use the word as often as possible.  
The Avengers scrambled to stand up and make themselves presentable.  
“Ma’am,” said the Captain as he stepped past her, and Hill marvelled at his ability to keep a straight face. The others were less collected, but followed with a few mumbled comments she didn’t want to try and decipher.

\---ooo---

The team ~~debriefing~~ meeting went relatively smoothly, and they were just getting ready to leave the bridge when Fury held up a hand.  
“I’m afraid that’s not all for today,” he said smoothly, and pulled up new information on the table screen.  
“Isn’t a rest break mandatory after physical missions?” Tony asked. “I mean, I’m assuming you could see what we were doing. Or did you forget to turn?”  
Surprisingly, the Director let the jab at his eyesight slide. That, if nothing else, told them all how serious this was going to get.  
“Professor Pierce Henderson,” he said, pointing to the screen. A photo of a small man with wisps of dark hair appeared. He looked like most of the other scientists at S.H.I.E.L.D.: glasses, lab coat and pocket protector. “Major field is genetics and biomechanical experimentation. His thesis explored the possibilities of creating super soldiers without resorting to serums or radiation; instead he wanted to select agents based on their genetic makeup.”  
Bruce suddenly found his fingernails absolutely fascinating, but Steve kept his eyes on Fury.  
“He wasn’t trying to create a ‘super race’, was he?” he asked with steel in his voice.  
Fury didn’t hesitate. “Nothing like that, Captain. We understood it was more about assigning agents certain roles because of specific, in-built capabilities.”  
“Like giving agents with higher oxygen levels in their blood mission at higher altitudes, I suppose,” Tony put in, and Fury nodded.  
“Is Henderson one of ours?” Clint asked quietly.  
“He was.”  
“Was...” Tony left his question unsaid.  
“Five years ago, we discovered that Henderson wasn’t just examining DNA, but was experimenting with altering it.”  
Bruce had taken a closer look at the written information. “It says here he was splicing different strands together to try and compound the ‘advantages’.”  
Fury nodded. “And so we kicked him out of S.H.I.E.L.D., made sure he ended up in some backwater town somewhere and gave a pair of rookie agents the job of keeping tabs on his activities.”  
When no one said any more after a beat, Steve prompted. “So why are we here now?”  
Hill stepped back into frame. “Three years ago, Henderson dropped off the grid. We’ve kept our eyes and ears open, but it was only three days ago that he appeared again.”  
A new photo popped up on the screen. It was some sort of lab, mostly white except for the two blood splatters surrounding the two bodies on the floor.  
Fury took over. “Henderson was found dead alongside a Russian scientist, by the name of Dimitri Vasilov.”  
Clint felt Natasha clench next to him, but no one else seemed to notice.  
“We’ve only just begun searching through all their files, but it seems that Henderson had been communicating with Vasilov for nearly two decades.”  
“You had a mole that long and you didn’t notice?”  
Fury took a deep breath, but still didn’t react to Stark’s prodding. “Henderson had been sending his tests to Vasilov, and Vasilov was using those results in ways that we don’t allow in the United States.”  
“And so when you pushed Henderson out, he could hand those tests to Vasilov himself,” Steve finishes.  
“This is a fascinating story, Director,” Tony said far too politely, “But this isn’t a mission you’d call the Avengers in for. Me and Bruce, maybe, but why do you want all of us? No offence, guys.”  
Clint shrugged, but he wondered if Natasha was even mentally in the room with them anymore. She knew this Vasilov, he was sure of it.  
“This isn’t a mission, Stark,” Fury was saying. “It’s worse. Much worse. We’re not totally sure that Henderson was alone in using S.H.I.E.L.D. facilities and intel, so for now we’re assuming nothing. This doesn’t leave this room, understand?”  
At their nods he continued. “What we have gathered from the files thus far is that Henderson didn’t just send test results to Vasilov. He sent samples of agents’ DNA, samples that he had identified as having certain capabilities worth exploring further. Captain, Thor, you are obviously safe because of your late arrival to the table. Stark, you would never let anyone get a hold on your DNA so you’re safe too. But Doctor Banner, we can’t be sure that he didn’t get a hold of some of yours from the army, so you need to be prepared.”  
Bruce looked pale. “One of me is too many.”  
Tony was ready to dispute that, but the Director took in another deep breath, and turned to the final two team members.  
“Barton, unfortunately we know he has – had – some of yours.” Clint nodded, but didn’t say anything.  
Fury didn’t look like he was going to continue, so Steve took matters into his own hands. “What about Agent Romanoff, Director?”  
Natasha finally looked up from the table. “Henderson didn’t need to get my DNA from S.H.I.E.L.D., Captain. Dimitri Vasilov still would still have had it from the Red Room.”


	4. Chapter 4

The meeting quietly broke off after Natasha’s revelation – Agent Hill and Director Fury were called away for a different crisis, Tony and Bruce kept going over the reams of data coming in from Russia, and Steve could see Clint and Natasha having another detailed conversation through eyebrows and mouth twitches. He turned to Thor.  
“What say we go spend some time in the gym?”  
Thor looked puzzled, so Steve tried to take a leaf out of Terrible Two-some’s (Tony’s nickname for Hawkeye and the Black Widow) book and tell him silently. Or telepathically.  
Thor still wasn’t getting it, so Steve sighed. “The science makes no sense to me and I think Clint and Natasha could use some space right now.”  
The Asgardian snuck another look across the table, and nodded slowly. “I bow to your common sense, Captain of America.”  
Relieved, Steve snuck out of the room – having Thor with him made a quick exit seem somewhat dignified.

 

Clint noticed the two leaving, but he was still trying to get Natasha to open up to him. She didn’t like to talk about the Red Room, so the fact she brought it up, in front of the entire team no less, meant it was important. Her mouth lifted in her own version of his smirk, so he raised his eyebrows questioningly.  
“ _As soon as Tony and Bruce leave Earth for planet Science Geek, Steve’s always the first one out the room._ ”  
“ _Still stalling, Nat._ ” Clint rolled his eyes.  
She sighed. “Dimitri was one of the Red Room’s scientists. A contractor, I think. He was involved in monitoring agents’ health and growth, but there were rumours going around about him experimenting with DNA. The trainers never talked about it though – we didn’t need that information.” She didn’t meet his eyes as she spoke, instead looking out over the bridge.  
Clint nodded. It made sense – he had similarly suspected that S.H.I.E.L.D. had his DNA but didn’t know what they would do with it. 

“Tony,” Bruce said suddenly. “Have you seen anything yet explaining what 1392 is? I’ve got a whole bunch of records here with it, but no explanation of what it is.”  
Tony started nodding his head, but stopped. “I think… sorry, this one has 1393, not 1392. Why, what have you got there?”  
“It’s just lists of numbers – maybe tracking something?”  
“It’s an agent record.”  
Bruce and Tony almost jumped out of their chairs when they realised the Black Widow was standing right behind them. Clint stifled a laugh, but Natasha was still focused on the data.  
“These are lists of height, weight, muscle mass, fitness tests – it’s an agent record.”  
“So 1392 and 1393 are agents, then?” Tony guessed.  
Natasha nodded, but Bruce looked confused. “But these weren’t with similar records. As far as we can tell, the lab were Henderson and Vasilov were found was stand alone. Why would their only be two agents checked there?”  
“Secret agents,” Tony grinned.  
“How far back do these records go?” Clint asked.  
Tony and Bruce began flicking through the files.  
“Would these have age recorded too, Natasha?” Bruce asked, and she pointed to a column. “That one.” Bruce nodded and kept going. He knew some basic Russian from his time on the run, but all the data in a small space made it hard to single things out.  
“Stop. That one, there,” Natasha leaned over Tony’s shoulder to point at a row of information. “That one says 3 months…”  
Tony and Bruce exchanged glances. “Are you thinking…” Bruce didn’t finish his thought.  
“You’re right.” Clint said suddenly, and the other three around the table looked across to him. He had pulled up a search function, and flicked it around so they could see it.  
“This data just came through - Agents 1392 and 1393, photos still to be located, first data entry for both was September 12, 1998. Reads ‘ _Experiments 1392 and 1393 successful, reached full term in surrogate and survived delivery._ ’ Then they each have a record of length, weight, gender, and some chemical symbols I don’t understand.”  
“I think I am thinking what you were thinking,” Tony said under his breath, but Bruce wasn’t really listening. He got up in a daze, and walked over to the rail.  
“Director? I think you’ll want to see this.”  
Fury and Hill came over straight away, and Bruce slumped back down next to Tony. Clint saw that Natasha was feeling similarly, but hiding it. Just.  
“We found records of two agents in the data sent over,” Bruce said.  
“Only two?” Hill asked.  
Bruce nodded. “They appear to be records from birth.”  
“Well, then it appears that…” Fury began but Tony interrupted him.  
“Before you finish that lie, Director, one question: is this what S.H.I.E.L.D. expected to result from Henderson’s research?”  
This time, at least, there was a reaction. Fury scowled. “No Stark. We did not want Henderson to experiment with our agent’s DNA.”  
Tony grimaced. “That’s not what I’m asking, Director. Did you or did you not want Pierce Henderson to mix together your agents’ DNA to create human embryos? Agents of the future?”  
At the stunned silence, Tony spun around to everyone. “Because that’s what he’s – or him and Vasilov – have done. Those chemical symbols that Legolas there didn’t understand correspond to DNA samples, and I’ll place a large bet on who they belong to…”


	5. Chapter 5

Their mark was an arms dealer holed up in an abandoned factory in Siberia. Surveillance showed he had been sending pallets of weapons towards Moscow, bound for the smaller time gangsters and neighborhood toughs that prevented ordinary people from living safe lives. Normally, this would be below Luka and Aleks’ skill level, but someone suspected that there was more to this ‘Maksim’ than met the eye.

 

Which was why Luka was standing behind Maksim, watching a poker game while the snow battered the ancient windows behind him. He was bored out of his brain just waiting, even while all his senses were on full alert, but he knew it was worse for Aleksandra – she was supposed to be stationed outside at a distance in case something went awry. He wouldn’t be surprised if she’d taken matters into her own hands and moved inside, still where she couldn’t be found.  
Maksim and his friends had worked their way through half a case of vodka (can’t be real Russians then, Luka thought) and were laughing over the results of the latest hand when one of the players spoke up.  
“What’s with your bodyguard, Maksim?” the man asked, his Irish accent coming through his half-decent Russian.  
“ _Michael Sanderson,_ ” Aleks supplied through his coms, “ _Sends and receives for the IRA._ ”  
“Yeah,” chimed in the one next to him.  
“ _That’s the contact we already knew about, George from Moscow._ ”  
“Little young for you, isn’t he?” slurred the last man. He was half off the table already.  
“ _And that’s the one we’re worried about now. Marcus. Looks like he’s smuggling things across the border into China._ ”  
“Alexei here?” Maksim was saying. Aleks had laughed out loud when Luka told her of his cover identity. That wouldn’t have been confusing, she’d said. Alexei and Aleks.  
“Alexei came from my usual distributor, but I have to say, they’ve sold me on the younger ones.”  
“Sold you!” Marcus actually fell of the table, and while rest of the men either laughed along with him or bent down to pull him up again, Luka took the opportunity to roll his eyes.  
He heard Aleks chuckle in his ear. “You don’t usually go out of character on a mission, Luka”  
That meant she had to be inside, somewhere we she could see his front. Luka couldn’t reply, but shrugged instead.  
“You are a funny man, Marcus,” Maksim replied, wiping tears from his eyes. “But yes, younger guards are better, I believe.”  
Luka felt Michael sizing him up. “He isn’t too small in a fist fight?”  
Maksim shook his head. “Not at all. Alexei’s been with me nearly 6 weeks and has proven more than capable of handling himself, and keeping his mouth shut.” He looked around the table. “I tell you, in the future wars will be fought by younger soldiers than ever. Their minds are so… pliable. You just point and shoot.” He chuckled darkly.  
The others followed suit, but Luka started to feel a low rumbling at the edges of his hearing.  
“ _Military or police unit coming in hot, Luka! Finish this and get out now!_ ” Luka could hear Aleks suppressing her panic as she packed up her gear as quickly as possible.  
“Boss…” Luka let his sentence drop as the other men also noticed the noise.  
“Something you haven’t told us, Maksim?” Michael asked as he jumped up from the table. George and Marcus quickly followed suit.  
“Despite how well off you seem to think I am, I do not have the entire police force under my command,” Maksim said as he glanced out the window.  
“Only part,” George muttered, but Maksim let it slide. He motioned to Luka to grab the diesel canisters and started dousing all his files. Luka complied, having copied all the important information weeks ago.  
“Someone’s been doing something they shouldn’t have,” Michael said suddenly, and whipped out his silenced pistol. Marcus and George threw up their hands.  
“I haven’t done anything wrong! Tell him boss!” Marcus cried pleadingly. Maksim didn’t even look up.  
“ _Get out Luka_ ,” Aleks said warningly.  
“Even Alexei could guess that you must have gotten sloppy on one of your trips,” Maksim snapped. “I’ll have to find another courier.”  
“You can’t, boss! My guy Jim in Beijing only talks to me…” Anything else Marcus wanted to say was lost when a machine gun’s salvo tore through the buildings walls and caught him across the chest. Luka dove down under a desk and saw the others do the same. George was still wailing, and without a pause Michael reached over and shot him in the temple.  
“This isn’t what you promised when you talked about ‘safe, isolated’ Russia, Maksim,” Michael yelled over the gunfire.  
” _Luka GET OUT! HQ has pushed up our extraction, the helicopter is meeting us at the top of the hill in 10. We’ve got what we needed, get out!_ ”  
Aleks distracted him so Luka didn’t notice that Michael had crawled towards him.  
“Sorry kid,” he said. “But I can’t have any witnesses.” He raised his gun. Luka had nowhere to go. There was nothing down low for him to hide behind. If he stood up, he’d be taken out by the machine guns still going – he didn’t know how far away the police were but they had to be almost close enough to storm the building. He hoped Aleks could still get out…  
Dimly he heard at shot, then a thud. Michael’s body slumped over him, and Luka could see the hole straight through his left eye. He threw the dead weight off and crawled back over to Maksim. All of sudden, the machine guns stopped, and the Luka felt swallowed by the silence.  
“Alexei? What’s going on?” Maksim’s voice was still soft, even in the dead quiet.  
“The police are trying to surround the building properly, and they can’t do that while there’s a chance of shooting each other,” Aleks said as she dropped to the floor. Luka raised one eyebrow at her; she shrugged in return.  
“Who…” Maksim backed up as Aleks pulled her own gun on him. He looked between the two of them. “Alexei – you can’t let her hurt me!”  
It was Luka’s turn to shrug. “I’m young. My mind’s pliable.”  
Maksim turned his focus back to Aleks. He tried to put all his charm into a voice that was shaking with terror. “You won’t shoot me.”  
Aleks smiled. Luka imagined the only way to make it more scary would be if she filed her teeth down to points. “Why not?” she chuckled. “You just point and shoot.”

 

\---ooo---

 

Luka and Aleks merely nodded at the agent sitting in the chopper. They saw the ground drop away from them, and the police task force taking over the factory.  
“We got what we needed,” the man said once the doors were closed. “We have new leads to chase but hopefully Maksim’s empire can be taken down by the police from here.”  
Aleks lent back into the seat. She knew it would take her a couple of days to properly wind down after the mission; being in a constant state of alert for weeks on end took it out of both of them, but watching was very tiring mentally.  
“Don’t rest yet,” their agent said unexpectedly. She opened her eyes reluctantly to see a file being thrust towards each of them. She and Luka opened them and froze. There, in her hands: two identikit pictures of Clint Barton and Natasha Romanoff. Hawkeye and the Black Widow. She bit back a gasp.  
“We’re ready, then?” Luka’s voice was steady. The man nodded. He thrust two packs at them and motioned for them to put the files inside. Aleks complied, but not before one final look. She so rarely got to see photos, she wanted to sit there and soak in all the similarities and pick out all the differences. The agent cleared his throat, and she shoved the pictures and her thoughts away. _Traitors_ , she reminded herself.  
“What’s the plan?” she asked to focus herself.  
The agent shook his head. “There is no plan. You’re totally solo from here on out.”  
Luka looked across and met her eyes. She could see the excitement and determination in them that surely matched her own. They had spent their entire lives preparing for this, and they weren’t about to waste any time.  
“Under your seats,” the agent said, and they reached down to find a parachute each. Without a question, Aleks strapped her back to her front then started getting into the harness. The agent flung open the opposite door.  
“The train is directly below us,” he yelled over the wind. “Tickets and passports are in your packs.”  
Luka met Aleks at the door. A plan was starting to form in her mind. The Trans-Siberian Railway would take them all the way to Moscow, where they could visit one of the stash houses to get more weapons, money and supplies. And different identification, if they needed them. If…  
“One question,” she yelled back. “Where are they?”  
The agent smiled grimly. “New York.”  
Aleks looked and Luka and they both grinned. Then they leapt out of the plan, through the swirling snow, towards the first step on their way to revenge.


	6. Chapter 6

_Tony grimaced. “That’s not what I’m asking, Director. Did you or did you not want Pierce Henderson to mix together your agents’ DNA to create human embryos? Agents of the future?”_

Fury sighed. “It was an early part of the planning for the Avengers Initiative. The Council wanted something that would last. Like Captain Rogers, for example.”  
“So what were you planning to do?” Bruce asked coolly. “Breed us like dogs?”  
“The Avengers Mk II is not what I wanted,” Fury snapped.  
“Well it’s what you’ve got,” Tony said lightly. “All done in a handy, colour coded chart that even Capsicle should be able to understand.”  
“What can I understand, Tony?” Steve asked as he and Thor came back to the bridge.  
“That the two versions of DNA we have from our friends in Russia are similar, but slightly different mixes of Spidey and Legolas’ own DNA,” Tony said happily.  
“What are you saying, Man of Iron?” Thor said, still looking confused.  
“He means that the records we found belong to two agents who are genetic descendants of Clint and Natasha,” Bruce explained. Thor still looked confused.  
“Wait, Clint and Natasha have kids?” Steve blurted out.  
“No!” Natasha yelled. “I ca… haven’t had any kids!” They all pretended to ignore her slip up, but Bruce made a mental note for future reference.  
“I told you even he would get it,” Tony said smugly, while Bruce nodded wearily.  
“Some Midgardians who are unable to have children ask a scientist to take the… necessary ingredients for making a baby and put them together for them,” he said, trying to keep it as simple as possible for Thor and as clean as possible for the Captain. “The baby might still be born from its mother, or someone else if she can’t.”  
Thor nodded slowly. “So, you are saying that someone else has made a baby for the Son of Barton and the Lady Natasha?”  
“That’s about it,” Tony said, at the same time as Natasha said, “But I didn’t ask for it!”  
“We know, Agent Romanoff,” Fury said, injecting himself into the conversation. Tony swung back to him.  
“Excellent timing, Director,” he said. “What was it about the ‘Avengers Mk II’ that you were about to explain in exquisite detail to all of us?”  
“Sorry, where did that name come from?” Steve asked.  
Director Fury sighed. Again. Apparently it was his thing for the day. “Back when the Council approved the Avengers Initiative, they stipulated that they didn’t want this to be a once in a lifetime effort. We recognised that people like Captain Rogers were one of a kind, and we didn’t want to try and create more of him. Yet.”  
Bruce looked away.  
“And so you hired Henderson to analyse your human agents’ DNA to try and find desirable characteristics for your team of super heroes,” Tony summarized. “We’ve heard this part. Next?”  
“Beyond my orders, the Council also had Henderson begin experimenting with altering DNA strands to accentuate certain abilities,” Fury continued. “None of these experiments were successful, and after talking with… international colleagues such as Vasilov, Henderson returned to mixing whole DNA together, beginning with the most obvious. Male and female reproductive units.”  
“Which is why he ended up merging Barton’s… units,” Tony looked like he wanted to giggle, if what they were talking about wasn’t so serious, “with what Vasilov had from Romanoff, an ended up with 1392 and 1393 here.” He wandered around the table, looking at the projected information from all angles. “It makes sense, in a creepy, mad scientist sort of way. Take the best male and female assassins in the world and get something even better.”  
“And if they’ve been in the Red Room since birth they certainly would have been training hard enough,” Clint put in, glancing apologetically at Natasha.  
“Do we know what they look like?” Steve asked.  
Bruce shook his head. “No photos yet. They must still be searching through the files left in the lab,”  
Tony smirked. “Can’t wait to see what they look like… BlackHawks? Spiderbirds? C’mon, work with me people!”  
Natasha jumped up and almost ran out of the room. Without looking at the others Clint followed her. He had almost been waiting for her to snap, with all the personal matters being flung around by the others. This time he didn’t say anything but waited until she was ready. If she was anyone other than the Black Widow she’d be shaking. Except for her, the only sign she was mentally freaking out was a tiny tremble in her bottom lip. It was like she wanted to talk, but didn’t know what to say. Clint was patient. Seeing as she didn’t talk openly much, he wasn’t going to interrupt one of the few times where she was actually trying.  
“The Room sterilizes all its operatives early on,” she said softly. “It makes for less problems later.”  
Clint had guessed as much. Operatives that were trained to seduce information and get close to targets wouldn’t be as useful if they were pregnant. He gently ran his hand down her arm.  
“It’s OK, Nat…”  
“I know you always wanted the home-and-family combo, but it was never part of my future, Clint! It was physically impossible…” Natasha looked like she was forcing herself to confront her thoughts. “And now, all of a sudden, we’ve got two teenagers running around who are copies of us. What are we supposed to do now?”  
Clint kept moving his hand to comfort his partner, but his mind was somewhere else. It was like it had only just hit him – he had kids. Sure they hadn’t arrived the conventional way, and they were teenagers already, but… kids. He felt a sudden urge to see what they looked like. Would they look like an even mix of the two of them? Would they be good shots like him, or secretive like her?  
“Clint,” Natasha said softly, and he looked up to meet her gaze. “You’re excited. I can tell.”  
“Well,” he started, then remembered that she was one of the few people he couldn’t lie to. She laughed at the look on his face.  
“I want to know what they look like,” he said.  
Natasha waited, then nodded. Clint felt the buzz again. Something was starting.


	7. Chapter 7

Director Fury, Agent Hill and the rest of the Avengers were still debating the files when Clint and Natasha reentered the bridge.  
“One big question still is: why are Henderson and Vasilov dead?” Tony was asking.  
“And who killed them?” Bruce put in.  
“There were only the two records kept there,” Clint pointed out, and Natasha agreed.  
“The crime scene photos indicate this wasn’t the standard Red Room lab,” she said.  
“If they wanted to destroy the evidence they didn’t do a very good job,” Hill observed. “Our team is still working, but so far most of the data we are recovering is intact.”  
“We were supposed to find this,” Natasha said.  
“But who did it then – who wanted us to get this information?” Tony pressed. “Because this is pretty significant for a trap or a decoy. There’s more going on here.”

 

\---ooo---

 

Aleksandra and Luka were gathering their final supplies from their Moscow safe house. She had already secured American money in their travel bags, as well as some Euros for the flight over. Luka was pulling out a selection of passports and other identity documents to take with them – they would use one ID to fly to Paris, then catch the train to London before finally boarding a flight to New York under different names.  
“What do you think?” he asked, holding up a pair of driver’s licenses. “Samuel Harrow and Grace Phillips, two British school leavers on a gap year in America.”  
“That for when we’re there?” Aleks asked while she finished packing some spare clothes. They needed some casual ones as well as more ‘mission suitable’ outfits.  
Luka nodded. “We can practice our British accents on the plane,” he said in English, with a terrible Cockney accent. Aleks laughed.  
“Planning on asking for tea and scones?” she replied, also in English but sounding exactly like a Londoner.  
“Of course,” Luka grinned, matching her accent.  
“When we confront them, I want to hear them talk our language,” Aleks said quietly, switching back to Russian. Luka didn’t respond.  
Both of them started slightly when a phone started ringing. It wasn’t one of theirs, but a spare phone they kept in the apartment in case their handlers needed to contact them in an emergency. It was a secure line, so Luka picked it up and put in on speaker.  
“Agents 1392 and 1393,” a voice said without prelude. “Your medical records have been compromised.”  
“What!” Luka yelped. “How could that possibly happen? Why were our details not kept secure?”  
“We are still determining the exact course of events, but it appears a traitor was involved. We were unaware of his treachery until now.”  
“What’s happening now?” Luka asked.  
“Nothing at the moment. We have had to stay away from the facility for the time being as S.H.I.E.L.D. has discovered the scene.”  
“S.H.I.E.L.D.” Aleks growled. “Does that mean the traitors will be expecting us?”  
“You need to expect that all your information will eventually be found,” the voice said. “If your parents haven’t already told S.H.I.E.L.D. about you, they can’t hide it now.”  
“I wonder what story they’ll come up with to explain why they left us behind?” Luka mused.  
“Hawkeye and the Black Widow will probably be expecting you to come after them to avenge the past,” the voice continued, “And as your medical records included photographs from your last examination, they will know your appearance.”  
“Disguises then,” Aleks said, and Luka nodded.  
“This will be the last communication from here on out. It is even more important now your movements remain secret.  
“Do not fail agents. Our organisation is depending on you to wipe this stain out of our history.”  
“Don’t worry,” Aleks grimaced. “This is personal. We will succeed in redeeming our family, or die trying.”

 

\---ooo---

 

“Something big is coming through!” Bruce said suddenly. They all turned towards him. “The files look like photos!”  
“Open them up!” Tony said eagerly. Clint felt almost like doing the same, but he forced himself to appear calm. He flicked his eyes towards Natasha. She looked as blank as always, but when she caught his gaze, he felt her curiosity as well. He reached out and took her hand, squeezing it reassuringly.  
 _Whatever happens._  
“Everyone, prepare to see Agents 1392 and 1393…” Bruce murmured, and flicked the photos open.  
The excited team turned and… froze. Of course, they had been given no expectations, but this…  
Natasha stepped forward, hesitatingly. She reached one hand out, like she wanted to touch the picture but couldn’t. Clint felt the slight tug on his hand that was still holding hers, and came alongside her.  
Two photos, two agents. 1392 was tall and slim, with a narrower face. His hair was sandy brown, shorter on the sides but longer on top. And his eyes – green, just like Natasha’s…  
Clint twisted to look at Natasha. The same eyes, on a different face. Except it was so like her face.  
Natasha wasn’t looking at Clint – she was looking at the other photo, 1393. She had longer hair than her own, but the colour was identical. She was shorter than her brother, more muscular. The analytical part of the Black Widow’s brain reasoned that she would be a good hand to hand fighter. The face was almost all Clint. Squarer jaw and blue-grey eyes. Natasha struggled to tear her gaze away, but Clint pulled. She could see he was comparing her to the two photos, and that part of her was doing the same.  
“They look just like you two!” Tony muttered in amazement. Natasha was amazed that he’d been able to keep quiet for that long.  
“You see Stark, when a baby is born it usually takes after its mother and father,” she answered sarcastically. At first, she thought she was just trying to distract all of them from what she was thinking and feeling; but then she realised she had just identified herself and Clint as a mother and father. From the look on his face, Clint noticed as well.  
“The two portraits do take after the pair of you,” Thor said loudly.  
“They don’t look very happy,” Tony observed. “Not your traditional Kodak moment.”  
“They went through the same training I did, Stark, if not harder,” Natasha said dryly. “They’re not just kids remember, they’re agents. Red Room agents.”  
“ _Agents?_ ” Clint asked quietly in Russian. “ _Or assassins?_ ”  
Natasha shrugged imperceptibly. “ _In the Room, same difference._ ”  
Bruce had learned not to question when the two S.H.I.E.L.D. agents started speaking foreign languages. “There’s a watermark down the bottom,” he said, “Probably the date of capture… two months ago.”  
“Anything else?” Steve asked.  
“Checking…” Bruce put on his glasses. “There’s something in Cyrillic. Natasha, can you?” He motioned to the screen.  
The Black Widow bent down towards the bottom of the picture.  
“They’re names,” she forced out.  
“Tasha?” Clint went to move closer, but she stepped back suddenly.  
“Names,” she repeated, looking up at the photos. “Luka and Aleksandra.”


	8. Chapter 8

“Luka and Aleksandra Barton-Romanoff. They have a nice ring to them,” Tony said conversationally.  
“We’re hyphenating the surname?” Bruce asked. Tony shrugged.  
“Might as well.”  
“I wonder what surname they were given?” Steve wondered.  
“Does your culture not also name children after their parents, as we do on Asgard?” Thor said.  
Natasha nodded. “It depends on who their parents were recorded as.”  
“What does it say about that?” Clint asked.  
“I’m still looking,” Bruce said, “Most of what we’ve been sent so far is just medical records. Hopefully now they have the photos they might send us some more details.”  
“The doctors would have recorded any injuries from training or missions,” Natasha said. “Can we look at those?”  
“What sort of training would the younger agents have undertaken, Lady Natasha?” Thor asked.  
“Assuming their methods haven’t changed, there’s not a lot they didn’t do Thor,” she answered. “Close and long range combat, shooting, languages, free running, survival techniques. Mission tactics and strategies.”  
“So they would already have gone on missions, then?” Steve put in.  
She nodded. “At 15? They probably have been doing things for three years or so. Possibly longer.”  
“Is it unusual for Midgardians to go into battle at such an age?”  
“Sadly it’s not unheard of, Thor,” Fury said.   
“Found anything, Doc?” Clint asked Bruce.  
“Still searching, but there’s another larger file coming across. Audio.”  
“What is it?” Steve said curiously. “Has it got a label?”  
“No file name,” Bruce murmured, “Only a time and date stamp.” He kept scanning the sent information, and his eyes lit up. “Our agents on the scene say that they’ve collected a number of audio files that appear to be conversations recorded in the lab. They’ve just sent us this one, so far. The most recent one. It looks like they’ve run it through some sort of translator, so it’s in English.”  
Agent Hill lent in over Bruce’s shoulder. “Time and date indicates it was close to the expected time of death.”  
“Let’s have a listen,” the Director said. There was a short pause, and then:  
“That was a car,” a voice said. “Someone’s here.”  
“I thought we weren’t expecting 1392 and 1393 today,” a second voice continued.  
“That’s Henderson,” Fury growled.  
“Would they have finished their mission by now?”  
The first voice grunted. “Who knows? Probably, knowing them. All I know is that they’re moving on to their next mission straight away.”  
“So soon?”  
“The boss decided that they were ready.”  
There was silence. Bruce almost went to check the file was still playing when Henderson started speaking again.  
“That’s sooner than we expected.”  
“I’m sure it hasn’t come soon enough for them. They’ve really been chomping at the bit these last few years.”  
“Ever met anyone else who wanted to kill their parents so badly?”  
All the Avengers reacted to that. Steve jumped out of his chair, Bruce put his head in his hands and even Tony looked shocked. Thor looked sad, probably thinking of Loki. Clint ran his fingers through his hair, trying once again to stay calm. Natasha had brought one hand to her mouth, but he squeezed the one that was still close.   
Together.  
The other man chuckled “No, but wouldn’t you if you’d been told what they have?”  
“I suppose.”  
“You never liked the story, did you?”  
Henderson sighed. “No, I just… the whole way through the process I knew what was going to happen to whatever – whoever – we created, but it was still hard to see two little kids grow up being told to hate their parents.”  
“That’s it though – it was going to have to happen. Don’t over think it. Their parents needed to die anyway.”  
“Good to know we’re paying you both to work hard,” a new voice said. It sounded cold and hard. Natasha tilted her head.   
“I feel like I know that voice.”   
Clint nudged her. “From the Red Room? Who was he?”  
“I’m not sure. I just know he was important.” Tony motioned for them to be quiet.   
“If we weren’t working hard you’d notice.”  
“Damn, he didn’t give a name!”  
“Shut up Tony!”  
“So you don’t think what we did was right, Henderson?”  
“I didn’t say that,” he said quickly.  
“Close enough. We don’t work in right or wrong, Professor, and you knew exactly that when you signed up.”  
“Then why did you tell Luka and Aleksandra that their parents abandoned them in firefight, and turned traitors to join S.H.I.E.L.D.?” Henderson yelled.  
The first man immediately tried to smooth things over. “Pierce, you know we don’t say their names. I’m sorry, he’s just over tired. He’s not really…”  
“It’s fine, Dimitri,” the cold voice cut across him. “It’s nice to know what people honestly think. Especially right before the end.”  
“What..”  
“I’m truly sorry, both of you,” he continued. His voice changed, slimy. “Without your participation this project would not have succeeded. But I suppose there was something in it for all of us – you proved your theories to be correct, and we got to replace our best agent plus one.”  
They heard a gun click.  
“No, Serg…”  
“Tell you what. When they get there, tell Natalia Romanova I said hello.”  
There were two shots, and the file stopped.

 

The team was silent. It was like they were all still processing everything.   
“Why would they have been recording in their own lab?” Bruce asked out of the blue. “Insurance?” Steve suggested. “Henderson, or Vasilov, might have kept them in case something happened to them.”  
“Good foresight there,” Tony muttered.  
“Sergei,” Natasha said suddenly. “That was his name. He was an agent handler, like Phil…”  
Director Fury stepped up in the awkward silence.  
“To summarise: the two created agents have been trained by the same organisation as Agent Romanoff, and have been brainwashed to believe that she and Agent Barton abandoned them at a young age. Presumably they are on their way here for revenge.”  
Everyone else started talking at once.  
Clint pulled Natasha towards him while the others started planning. Tony was going on about upgrading Jarvis, and Fury and Hill were talking quietly in a corner.  
“So our kids want to kill us,” he said lightly.  
Surprisingly, she almost smiled. “I hear that’s common amongst teenagers.”  
“What are we going to do when they find us?” he said. “It’s not like we can…”  
“Kill them?” she finished. “Well, I have practice in fighting someone to take them down rather than taking them out.”  
He winced. The fight that Loki caused was still a sore spot. “Do you think we could convince them that they’re wrong?”  
Natasha shrugged. “They’ve been taught to resent us their entire lives. And I’m sure there’s more we haven’t been told. And they’re like us – I’m sure they’re both as stubborn as anything.”  
“So, what are we going to do?” Steve asked loudly. Seemingly he wanted to include them in the conversation.  
“We will be ready,” Thor intoned, and Tony nodded.  
“We know what they look like, we know what they’re going to do. So we’ll be prepared.”

 

\---ooo---

 

Two backpackers stared up in awe at Times Square.  
“It’s something else, isn’t it Grace?”  
“There’s more people here than I’ve ever seen in my life,” she said as men in suits pushed their way past her.   
They ducked the way through tourists taking photographs, and the hordes streaming towards McDonald’s for lunchtime. In the distance they could see the solitary letter left on Stark Tower. She fixed her blonde hair behind her ears.  
“I hate contacts,” her companion muttered, rubbing his brown eyes.  
“Stop it, Lu-Samuel!” she grinned. It was always harder to keep up their covers when they were alone. Even when they were looking into a mirror and saw completely different people, they were still Luka and Aleks. She turned around to look at all the activity.  
“We’ll find them, Samuel. Even if we have to level half the city.”


	9. Chapter 9

It wasn’t quite dawn, and Natasha was sitting on the couch, still looking through the files. She’d gone to bed when the rest of the team had, but she’d slept so lightly she just gave up. Clint had stirred when she left, but she knew he would settle again. It hadn’t been a relaxing evening; after they’d gotten back to the Tower, everyone split up like they didn’t know how to react around one another. Natasha suspected that Steve especially was avoiding her.

She didn’t know what to say to any of them.

 

The information she had in front of her seemed like a ‘miscellaneous’ collection of data. It had seemed strange to her that all this information was kept in a lab, but she supposed that it was deemed too classified to be accessible to the other technicians and agents at the Red Room.

“ _1392 successfully ran up wall, 5 yrs 8 months._ ”

“ _1393 choose to learn French rather than English, 3 years 2 months.”_

_“1393 initially refused weapons test with bow – ‘_ what am I, Robin Hood?’ – _, 11 years.”_

Natasha had to chuckle at that one. That comment from Aleksandra sounded just like Clint. She wondered again just how like them they would be. She knew that Luka and Aleksandra looked physically similar to her and Clint, but would they have similar personalities? Would they like the same sorts of things, be good at the same things? How much was nature, and how much was nurture? Because if their childhood was anything like hers, there certainly wasn’t much nurture.

“ _1392, first kill, 8 years 5 months._ ”

This was even worse in that it was probably another one of the Red Room’s trainees. Forced fights to the death were not uncommon.

“You’re up early, Nat.”

She had heard Clint come in, but she had let him come up behind her before she turned around. It was a show of trust from her.

“This isn’t enough, Clint.”

He started rubbing her back in slow, long motions. “I know.”

“I want to know them, not read reports about them.”

He stopped, and leaped over the chair to sit alongside her. “You do want to know them? Even after what we heard yesterday?”

She sighed inwardly. Natasha knew that both of them understood children were never an option for her, but something had switched when she saw the pictures of Luka and Aleksandra.

“I see myself in them, Clint. I know what they’ve been through; I know what it’s like to belong to the Red Room. I want to help.”

He leaned towards her and kissed her softly.

“They’re ours, Tasha. Whatever happened, they’re ours.” He kissed her again. “I feel like I love them already.”

Natasha pulled back abruptly. “You know they don’t love us. They might never.”

“I know.”

 

 

\---ooo---

 

 

“I’ve got the last three up here on the run, Cap. How’s things on the ground?”

Captain America threw his shield at the mutated zebra, then tackled the lynx coming up behind the Black Widow.   
“Busy!” he grunted out.

Hawkeye took out the last eagle circling his position then changed his focus. “Thor needs some help on the next block, Cap. I reckon he could handle one crazy bear, but four might be a bit much.”

“Roger that, Hawkeye. Position secure?”

“Yes…” out of the corner of his eye Hawkeye saw a group of monkeys, chimpanzees and gorillas that had been scaling the building behind him start to block off his escape routes. He checked his quiver. Low. _This seems to happen a lot._

“Actually, it’s getting a bit cramped up here. Fancy some company, Widow?”

“If you can spare the time,” she replied, as though they were just heading out for a walk instead of subduing most of the residents of Central Park zoo who had been brainwashed by H.Y.D.R.A.

“Be there in a just a sec,” he said, equally calm, and grappled down to street level. He rolled, stood up and shot in one movement. Another tiger dropped.

“Nice of Tony to whip up some tranq arrows for you,” his partner deadpanned, while using her Bites on a lion.

“Is it just me, or are our lives getting steadily more ridiculous every day?” he quipped.

“After the fifth lemur, I kind of stopped keeping track,” she said while firing another shot.

They fell into a rhythm, slowly but surely clearing the street.

“Just coming in to clean up the roof tops,” Iron Man said over the coms.

“Roger that,” the Captain replied. “Fall in, Avengers.”

Clint felt his shoulders drop in relief. Dimly, he realised that the alleyways were dotted with onlookers, watching him very carefully. It was one of the few things that bothered him as part of the Avengers; he’d gone from being a secret agent to someone that every kid on the street recognised. It was time to go.

 

 

\---ooo---

 

Samuel Harrow and Grace Phillips – aka Luka and Aleksandra – watched the fight from a distance. This was combat like they’d never seen before. Of course, part of that had to do with the crazy animals. _Only in America…_

The human fighters seemed organised somehow – even though their uniforms didn’t match Luka could tell they were fighting as a team. The two that were closest to them were in a class of their own though – he wondered if even Aleks could outshoot the man, and the woman’s gymnastic skills were definitely out of his league. Out of curiosity he stopped a kid who had been watching with them.

“Hey, who was that?” he asked, pointing to the spot where the two fighters in black had just been.

“Where have you been?” the boy said incredulously. “We just saw the Avengers in action! Well, Hawkeye and the Black Widow, but I know the others were out there too! They’re my favourite superheroes! That was so cool, they were like ‘bang!’ and that monkey was like ‘kapow’! and I was like ‘yahoo’!” The kid ran off, ready to give a play by play to anyone who would listen.

Aleks turned to Luka as soon as they were alone.

“Superheroes? Is this some sort of joke?”

He was shaking his head. “It doesn’t make any sense. What sort of cover is a superhero? What sort of agency is S.H.I.E.L.D. to put its agents out in the open like that?”

“They’re murderers, Luka,” Aleks snapped. “Not agents. Murderers, terrorists and lousy parents.”

“I think we need to find out more about these Avengers and where S.H.I.E.L.D. fits in,” Luka said. “This isn’t what I was expecting.”

Aleks snorted. “It makes a mockery of their training, that’s what it does.”

Luka stopped. “Do you think they might come home with us, now we’ve been trained and are proper agents like they were? Might we be good enough for them now?”

“They abandoned us to death, Luka! The only way they can make up for what they’ve done is to die!”

Luka grabbed her by the shoulders. “I know, Aleksandra, but we need to focus! The only danger to us is that we get too emotionally involved in this mission. We need a plan.”

She nodded slowly and let out a long breath. “You’re right. Let’s find out what we need. I need some thinking time.”


End file.
